


A Mile In Your Shoes

by overlymetaromantic



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, M/M, boys being friends and also a little bit gay gives me life, mostly pointless fluff with a little bit of feels at the end, the last three only show up at the end though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 09:32:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1935828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overlymetaromantic/pseuds/overlymetaromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Say, Rin-chan, you know what we should do?” Nagisa says with a gleam in his eye that guarantees Rin is going to regret asking him to clarify.</p>
<p>“What?” he asks anyway, as uninterested as he can. Nagisa lights up regardless and presents Rin’s shirt to him like it isn’t his own.</p>
<p>“We should switch uniforms!” he proclaims loudly, and Rin is suddenly very grateful he and Nagisa are the only ones in the changing room right now.</p>
<p>(In which Nagisa and Rin switch uniforms for the hell of it, and the ensuing conversation features a little bit of what they both need to hear.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mile In Your Shoes

Nagisa, Rin thinks, must have some kind of secret superpower for persuasion, because for the life of him he cannot think of any other reason he would be agreeing to any of this.

It’s a little unusual that they’re the only two in the changing room, but that’s not the problem; it’s rare Rin is alone with any of his friends from Iwatobi nowadays, since whenever he sees them it tends to be as a group, and almost invariably related to swimming. Currently he and Nagisa are both about halfway through getting dressed after having had another pseudo-joint practice--pseudo in that it was hosted at Iwatobi, which is tiny in comparison to Samezuka and therefore only Rin and Nitori came along--which also isn’t the problem, except Rin would have been finished getting dressed if it weren’t for the fact that when Rin had reached for his shirt, Nagisa had beat him to it.

“What are you doing?” he asks rather than immediately try to grab it back, because as sad as it is to admit, experience has established that Nagisa has expert dodging skills. He still feels like he should be at least somewhat concerned, though, because the sheer amount of enthusiasm Nagisa is handling his shirt with is, quite frankly, rather concerning.

“Say, Rin-chan, you know what we should do?” Nagisa says rather than actually answer, with a gleam in his eye that guarantees Rin is going to regret asking him to clarify.

“What?” he asks anyway, as uninterested as he can. Nagisa lights up regardless and presents Rin’s shirt to him like it isn’t his own.

“We should switch uniforms!” he proclaims loudly, and Rin is suddenly very grateful he and Nagisa are the only ones in the changing room right now. He barely manages to limit his reaction to a cocked eyebrow, but his exasperation clearly shows enough to catch Nagisa’s attention, who flashes a worrying grin.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun!” He’s already throwing Rin’s shirt over his shoulders, testing out the size, and Rin barely holds back a sigh. “Think of it like a team bonding exercise!” 

“We’re on different teams,” Rin deadpans, but Nagisa clearly isn’t listening; instead, he’s eying Rin's pants, like he’s sorely tempted to yank them off and claim them as his own, like he’s apparently already done with Rin’s shirt. Rin takes a deliberately step back. “And in any case what I am supposed to do if you’re wearing my clothes?”

Nagisa hums contemplatively for a moment, and then breaks out into a sunny grin. “You can wear mine!”

Rin glances down to where Nagisa’s uniform is not-so-neatly folded by the rest of his things. He would be lying if he said he’d never thought about at least trying Iwatobi’s uniform on, born out of the same childlike drive that made him convince his mom to let him transfer schools when he was eleven years old. It’s stupid, he knows, but he’s been dealing with various bouts of nostalgia since before he even came back to Japan, and actually managing to spend time with his old friends without being a complete and utter prick certainly isn’t exactly helping the whole thing. Iwatobi’s uniform more generic than Samezuka’s uniform, a standard suit jacket and tie; it’s a decent enough style, though, and Rin moves over to pick up Nagisa’s shirt and looks it over.

It’s also about four sizes too small. Rin starts to point this out to Nagisa, except Nagisa’s pants are already flying off him and Rin barely manages to catch them before they hit him in the face.

“Oi!” he starts, only to stop short at the sight of Nagisa reaching for his underwear. Rin feels like he should be a little concerned how quickly he knows exactly what it is Nagisa wants to do.

“What do you think you're doing,” he asks flatly, and thankfully Nagisa pauses before he can actually lower his boxers.

“Aren’t we switching underwear too?”

“No!”

Nagisa lets out a forlorn sigh, but moves his hands away with a gesture of defeat. He then tugs at his undershirt--a bright pink undershirt, at that, and Rin has no idea where Nagisa even finds clothes like that.

“So there’s no chance of you wearing this either?” He looks so genuinely disappointed, like Rin is somehow letting him down in not trying on a shirt that probably wouldn’t even make it past his shoulders before tearing, and Rin can only stare until Nagisa lets out another sigh.

“You realize I wouldn’t be able to get it over my head, much less wear it,” he says. Nagisa just smiles and holds out an expectant hand; Rin can only wonder when exactly he agreed to do this, but he steps out of his pants and hands them off to Nagisa regardless, who accepts them with a highly unnecessary amount of glee. Rin turns back to Nagisa’s clothes, which he’s still clutching in his hands, and with a sigh of his own moves to shrug them on.

It’s a bit concerning how tight Nagisa’s shirt is around Rin’s arms and chest. He’s almost scared to try and fit the jacket on top of it:  he can barely move as it is. He doesn’t even bother to try buttoning it all the way up, and ultimately decides to delay putting on the jacket in favor of attempting to fit into Nagisa’s pants first.

_Attempt_ , Rin thinks, has to be the key word, after he’s hopped up and down for at least the fifth time trying to get the stupid waistband past his hips. He hears Nagisa smother a laugh and shoots him a glare. In contrast to the uncomfortable amount of ankle Nagisa’s pants are showing off on Rin, Rin’s pants are pooling at Nagisa’s feet, and he keeps having to shuffle them about to stop himself from tripping over the hem. Rin gives a scoff of his own, to which Nagisa replies by blowing a raspberry, and Rin shifts his attention back to--barely--getting the jacket on before picking up the tie.

He tosses it around his neck before he pauses, hands hovering. He can’t actually remember how to tie a tie. He doesn’t think he’s had to wear one since elementary school, and back then he had his mom to help him out; he did have a uniform in Australia, but those had just been collared shirts, no ties to go with it, so it’s not like he got any practice in then. He steals another glance over at Nagisa, and for what feels like for the first time in his life, it seems luck's actually on his side, because Nagisa somehow hasn’t noticed his hesitation, far too wrapped up in trying to figure out the buttons on Rin’s shirt to pay his own dressing any attention. Rin decides he can probably pass it off like he just didn’t want to bother, like he did with the top buttons of Nagisa’s shirt, and sits down on the bench, trying to ignore the way the pants pull around his legs.

“There!” Nagisa exclaims, spinning around to show the uniform off. “Rin-chan, you’re so big!” Nagisa flaps his arms excitedly, the sleeves of Rin’s shirt falling past his fingertips so it looks like he has little wings, and Rin very definitely does not smile. Nagisa looks even more like a twelve-year-old than he usually does dressed like this; it almost looks cute--like the little kids at the swim club are cute, mind, not that he actually thinks Nagisa is cute, and he shifts awkwardly at the thought, Nagisa’s pants pulling uncomfortably at his thighs. Everything feels tight, really, ridiculously tight, and he’s suddenly very worried about having to take all of this back _off_.

“So, Rin-chan, what do you think? Do I look like a captain?” Nagisa interrupts his train of thought by spinning back around to face him. He then juts out his chin and drops his voice in what Rin has to assume is meant to be an impression of himself, because Nagisa immediately follows it up with an exaggerated scowl and says, “You better give it your best or I’ll beat the crap out of you!” in an overly dramatic tone, complete with an angry little hand gesture. It’s actually a little uncanny to see, not that Rin would _ever_ admit to that.

“I don’t sound like that,” he says instead, and Nagisa just laughs, spinning around again. “When exactly am I getting my clothes back anyway?”

Nagisa finally stops spinning and turns to Rin again with a pout. “Rin-chan,” he whines, “you gotta enjoy the moment! Let it last! It’s not everyday I manage to do something like this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rin can’t help but protest, because while he’s the first to admit that everything that went wrong after his move back to Japan was pretty much entirely his own fault, he _has_ been trying to make up for it, and he suddenly feels worried that it hasn’t been enough.

“I mean, it’s not often we get to hang out like this, plus the school year's starting back up again so everyone’s going to be busy for a while, especially since you’re a third year now, you know? Everyone’s graduating soon,” Nagisa says, and Rin stills at the thought. “Well not everyone,” Nagisa amends, “but still! You, and Haru-chan and Mako-chan, we only just reunited! We’ve barely had any time together!” He flaps his arms again as if in protest, and the futility of the gesture seems so apparent that Rin suddenly finds himself looking away, as if this is somehow his fault too. “Sure we’ve got the school year left, but that’s barely any time at all! There are still a ton of things we need to all do together, but we only have until next spring because after that everyone’s gonna go they’re separate ways, and then we’re going to have to find more members for the swim team all over again.” Nagisa actually properly frowns at that, and Rin finds himself unable to say anything, and just stares down at his too-short pants instead.

He sometimes forgets that Nagisa is younger than all of them. He remembers Makoto telling him at one point how it had been Nagisa who had got them all back on a swim team, how he’d convinced Makoto to be captain and Haru to vice captain, and how he had sought out Rei to make sure their club had a fighting chance, and now it seems he’s going to be left behind all over again. Rin glances off to the side with a frown and rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah, it’s going to be a change,” he says, at least partially to himself, but Nagisa gives a soft hum of agreement regardless. “Of course, knowing you, you’ll somehow get us to all go to the same college just to be on a team together again,” Rin can’t help but smirk, although even as he tries for sarcasm, he can feel some affection slip through, and Nagisa perks up.

“You think so?” he practically glows, and Rin can’t help but grin.

“If anyone could make it happen, you could,” he says, because after all it is the truth; he honestly would not be surprised if in five years Nagisa showed up on his doorstep, announcing that the old Iwatobi swim club is back on again, and Rin-chan will be joining, right! If anything, Rin almost feels surprised by how willing he would be to go along with it when it inevitably happens, and he pauses a moment to turn over the thought.

“Of course, you’ll probably be training all the time for the Olympics, so I suppose we’d have to spare you _some_ time to work on kicking everyone’s butts,” Nagisa muses above him, already caught up in his fantasy college years. “Ah! I do expect to have bragging rights about that though, you know!” he adds, and Rin raises an eyebrow again. “While you’re off in whatever country winning medals for Japan, we'll be able to go into a bar or a restaurant where we’ll turn on the TV, and we’ll be able to tell everyone, hey! There’s Rin-chan! We know that guy! Ooh, maybe they’d even give us free drinks for it, d’you think?”

Even Rin can picture it in his mind’s eye, now:  Nagisa and Makoto crowded around a TV, maybe Rei or Gou or, hell, even Haru with them, watching him prepare to compete on a tiny little screen. Sousuke would probably be at the Olympics with Rin, and wouldn’t that be a dream--one of his best friends there with him, plus the knowledge of the rest cheering him on back home, and he can’t help but get caught up a little bit in the image. It’s what he’s been picturing for himself since the fifth grade, sure, but it still feels different to hear someone else say it out loud:  it feels more solid, like there really is a possibility of it coming true, and his startled “thank you” gets caught somewhere in his throat. He pauses, takes a steadying breath, and looks back up with what feels like one of the brightest grins he’s managed in a long while.

“You’re damn right you’ll be seeing me on TV,” he says with such genuine confidence that he almost surprises himself all over again, and Nagisa grins excitedly back.

“Yeah!” he cheers. “And then we’ll all--”

Whatever Nagisa was about to add is lost when there’s a sudden noise outside, though, and Rei and Haru walk through the door.

“There you two are! What are you--”

Rei abruptly cuts himself off as Nagisa lets a little, “Ah,” of surprise, and he stares at them, almost ludicrously shocked. He doesn’t seem to know who to be more scandalized by, Nagisa or Rin, and Rin can feel the tips of his ears start to burn. Haru simply gives them one long, silent, blank look before turning around and walking back out, tugging the still shell-shocked Rei with him. The click of the door falling shut echoes throughout the room.

“Haru! Did you find them?” he hears Makoto ask outside, and Rin can feel himself turning redder and redder, distinctly not helped by the fact that even Nagisa seems to still be stunned into silence, staring at the door with a half-formed grin on his face, Rin’s uniform practically falling off of him while Rin is still barely able to move in Nagisa’s.

“They’re busy,” Haru’s voice barely carries through the closed door, and Rin is at least able to move enough to bury his face in his hands with a groan while Nagisa finally doubles over laughing.

**Author's Note:**

> As inspired by [ the latest episode's end card](http://lamefacestace.tumblr.com/post/91257871118/free-eternal-summer-episode-2-end-card). This was written a whole lot more rushed than I usually work, so I'm sorry if the quality isn't super great, but seriously, KyoAni, you can't make official art like that and not expect me to do _something_ about it, I mean _really_.


End file.
